The Brave web browser

Posted Jun 17, 2017 12:08 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304)
In reply to: The Brave web browser by drag
Parent article: The Brave web browser

cryptocurrency makes sense. It really does.
The low transaction costs are key

So presumably you're no longer considering Bitcoin cryptocurrency, since transaction delays are now so huge that schemes have sprung up where you pay people to get agglomerated into their transaction, driving transaction costs up to frankly ridiculous levels.

As far as pyramid schemes go and risk.. It's not a real pyramid scam, but the risk is part of how speculation works.

I'm not saying it's a pyramid scheme because it's risky. I'm saying it's a pyramid scheme because the exponentially declining mining rate is an obvious way to ensure that whatever value Bitcoin gets is predominantly funnelled to early users who mined or hung onto coins before it got popular. (Of course, this only works if the early bitcoins doesn't get stolen by someone else, which given the state of IT security means they more or less have to be kept offline and disconnected from any powered-on device. So perhaps we should say that it is a pyramid scheme that funnels value to early users and miners, and thieves who prey on those people.)

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The Brave web browser

Posted Jun 19, 2017 17:01 UTC (Mon) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

> So presumably you're no longer considering Bitcoin cryptocurrency,

No longer _successful_ cryptocurrency. I never had high hopes for bitcoin.

> I'm saying it's a pyramid scheme because the exponentially declining mining rate is an obvious way to ensure that whatever value Bitcoin gets is predominantly funnelled to early users who mined or hung onto coins before it got popular.

That's not really anything that is unique to bitcoin. You are just describing that is commonly called deflation. When the supply of money doesn't rise to meet the demand then the value of the money tends to rise. People are then incentivized to hold onto the money, which then (when the money gains acceptance) tends to get used in the form of loans and whatnot.

The creation of alternative 'coins' is then a good thing because it's a way to inflate the supply beyond the built-in limitations of bitcoin, but is still going to be something that is predictable. It encourages technological development in cryptocurrencies and discourages people from hording 'alt-coins' as long term investment. If people manage to create a technologically excellent 'alt-coin' then they can be rewarded by being a early-in.

The Brave web browser

Posted Jun 29, 2017 10:14 UTC (Thu) by davidgerard (guest, #100304) [Link]

Ethereum is already showing transaction clogs - it's about 3 TPS average (capacity is presently 14 TPS), but the Bancor and Status ICOs both rendered the network unusable for several hours.

Ethereum is not going to cope with an even slightly popular dapp, and that particularly includes BAT on Brave if it gets any appreciable number of users.

You could postulate BAT hopping from crypto to crypto as they fill, I suppose ...